Wilmette (Metra)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilmette is the name of a commuter railroad station in Wilmette, Illinois, USA that is served by Metra's Union Pacific/North Line. Trains go south to Ogilvie Transportation Center and as far north as Kenosha, Wisconsin. Travel time to Ogilvie is 31 minutes on local trains, and as little as 27 minutes on morning inbound trains and 22 minutes on one afternoon inbound train. In Metra's zone-based fare schedule, Wilmette is in zone C.

The station is located at Green Bay Road and Washington Avenue in Wilmette's central business district. Northbound trains stop on the west platform and Chicago-bound trains stop on the east platform. The closest CTA Purple Line station is Linden, about a mile away.

[edit] History

The first railroad station in Wilmette opened in 1871 at a cost of $700. In 1875, it took 30 minutes to get to Chicago (about the same as now), and the fare was 11 cents (adult one-way tickets cost $3.05 in 2006) (Cary, 2004).

The present Metra station in Wilmette opened in 2001. As of 2004, it was the 29th busiest station in the Metra system (which had 240 stations at the time), with an average of more than 1,300 weekday boardings. (Cary, 2004).